picture of Czechoslovak society at that time. While it does deal with “private” problems and there is little overt political criticism, the implicit criticism is 7 considerable, and the problems with which it deals take place in a social context. Hence, loneliness, cynicism, personal and professional failure, compromise, wrongful JÁN KADÁR AND ELMAR KLOS imprisonment, and lack of faith are shown as generalized characteristics of a Peter Hames supposedly socialist society. A strong sense of alienation is created by the mood of gloomy desolation with Since Ján Kadár made his first film as early as 1950, he was, strictly speaking, too old which film opens. There are shots of a church tower and a light accompanied by the to be considered a member of the First Wave. This is even more true of his habitual ringing of bells. A lorry passes through the night streets. A drunkard is thrown out of collaborator, scriptwriter, and producer, Elmar Klos, who was one of those involved a bar and catches a tram. The camera is situated with a driver‟s view of the road in drawing up the original nationalization plans for the film industry. Together, they moving forward along the tram tracks as lonely figures are shown waiting by the occupy an intermediate position between the older generation and those who made roadside. Zdeněk Liška‟s music accompanies the movement to create a sense of misty their debuts in the late fifties. However, the progressively critical and innovative isolation. As the tram passes by blocks of flats, it heads for the house at the terminus, nature of their work in the fifties and early sixties justifies their inclusion in the same a giant, isolated tower block that appears to rise out of a wasteland. It is a building stream as Helge, Jasný, Vláčil, and Kachyňa. that will be referred to later in the film as “the end of the world.” Kadár‟s first film, Katka (1950), made in his native Slovakia, told the story of a The film focuses on the subject of birth, on whether it is right to marry and have young village girl who became a factory worker. This apparently uncontroversial work children given the state of the world. The subject recurs in ‟s got him expelled from the Slovak industry. “It had been decided that it was no longer documentary Why? (Proč? 1964) and Jaromil Jireš‟s feature The Cry (1963). The first necessary to urge people to leave their homes for industry. . . . But above all, the film film examined the problem of the falling birth rate following the legalization of wasn‟t „national‟ enough, it wasn‟t sufficiently steeped in folklore and Slovakism. . . abortion, and the second looked at the nature of the world into which a child was 1 And that was referred to as „the bourgeois point of view.‟” about to be born. House at the Terminus deals with essentially the same issues but is Forced to look for work elsewhere, Kadár turned to the Czech studios and began more directly linked to the atmosphere of the Cold War and the spiritual poverty of his long association with Elmar Klos. Their first film together was Kidnapped (Únos, Stalinism. 1952), and, although later rejected by Kadár as “an extremely naive, dogmatic cold- The theme is raised through the relationship between Olina (Eva Očenášová) and 2 war type of film,” it was accused of “bourgeois objectivism.” Only the intervention Karel Martinec (Vladimír Ráž). He is a pharmacist who comes to live at the house, of V. I. Pudovkin saved them from censure. Their next film, Music from Mars (Hudba z and Olina is a woman living on her own, hoping for children. They fall in love and 3 Marsu, 1954), was a musical comedy adapted from a story by Blažek criticizing she becomes pregnant. Karel initially tries to give her something to stop the bureaucracy. This time, Kadár and Klos were accused of having slandered public pregnancy and, later, following a crisis in their relationship, takes her to an figures. abortionist. Finally, she rejects him and determines to have the child out of wedlock. In view of the unavailability of these films, it is not possible to provide an She hopes that her son (she‟s sure it will be one) will become a proper human being adequate analysis. However, it is possible to consider their next film, the apparently and “be able to love a lot and never be lonely.” conformist House at the Terminus (Dům na konečné, 1957). According to Kadár, it was “a In this sense, Olina can be seen as a “positive” character, asserting the values of film which had nothing to do with politics or any so-called „social‟ subject matter... human life. Karel, on the other hand, is clearly “negative,” although it is a negativity 4 There were no problems: everyone was happy.” It is all the more surprising, rooted in the times. From his own point of view, he is a failure since he had always therefore, that House at the Terminus should present a pessimistic and highly critical wanted to be a poet and pharmacy is a second choice. When he arrives at the house, he announces that these are his tenth digs and that he keeps moving on in the hope 1 Ján Kadár, interviewed in Liehm, Closely Watched Films, p. 401. that “something may happen.” Faced with Olina‟s pregnancy, he argues that he is a 2 Ibid. 3 Vratislav Blažek is known primarily as a comic and satirical dramatist and made a major man who always thinks twice. What with the atom bomb and so on, there‟s no point contribution to the early films of Kadár and Klos. He later wrote the script and lyrics for the in having children. musical The Hop Pickers (Starci na chmelu, 1964), directed by Ladislav Rychman. It was a The film‟s theme is supported by subplots that contrast the situations of those sensational success with the younger generation and marked a breakthrough in the musical who have children and are unable to care for them and those who want children and genre. Blažek emigrated after the Soviet invasion. are unable to have them. Pešta (Martin Růžek), the drunkard from the film‟s opening, 4 Kadár, interviewed in Liehm, Closely Watched Films, p. 402.

49 appears at key intervals in the film‟s narrative. His wife has died, and it appears that best friend loses his job for justly criticizing evil happenings. The hero is granted a he was, at least in part, responsible. His small daughter, Hanka, now lives with her further wish. He can save his friend if he is prepared to give up all the advantages that grandmother (his mother-in-law) in the house at the terminus. When the grand- he has gained. There the film ends, with a question mark. According to Mira Liehm mother dies (the day Olina discovers her pregnancy), Hanka goes to live with the and Antonín Liehm: Kovanks, a decent couple unable to have children of their own. Pešta‟s genuine love for his daughter is never in doubt, but his attempts to live up to his responsibilities The film showed what the stage version had concealed: the mechanism of social are woefully inadequate. His attempt to gain custody of Hanka provokes Mrs. corruption, cowardice, and hypocrisy that the old man takes advantage of to fulfill the Kovanková‟s comment: “Those that don‟t want them have them and those that want wishes. And so the concluding question in the film was different from the one posed them can‟t have them.” To her husband, she challenges: “Say what‟s inside, what on the stage: if you truly begin to fight a situation that is destroying honest people, you have to count on losing the advantages that this situation brought to you. Are you makes you so unhappy. She‟s the one who couldn‟t have children.” It is when Olina really willing to do it?5 overhears this conversation that she finally rejects the proposed abortion. Olina‟s story is directly linked to the lives of those about her and also to the circle The film was banned and finally released in 1963 when “its criticism was toothless of life and death (the juxtaposition of her pregnancy and the grandmother‟s death). ... and its film language outdated.”6 Her positive and even hopeful attitude is presumably what saved the film from After Three Wishes, Kadár and Klos were banned from the studios for two years criticism. However, it is an attitude that contradicts rather than affirms the values of but returned again in 1963 for Death Is Called Engelchen (Smrt si říká Engelchen, 1963) society that have been portrayed. The sense of isolation conveyed in the film‟s based on Ladislav Mňačko‟s novel, and The Accused (Obžalovaný, 1964), based on a opening is carried through in its study of a group of characters “at the end of the screenplay by Vladimír Valenta, which analyzed the nature of Stalinist justice in a style terminus.” The grandmother dies alone, Pešta is left with his drink, the situation of reminiscent of documentary. In Death Is Called Engelchen they attempted a more the Kovanks is unresolved, and Karel‟s cynical defeatism is unchanged. adventurous style in what many critics consider to be their best film. The story is told The film even has an explicitly political dimension. Olina‟s neighbor has a husband in flashback through the recollections of a wounded guerrilla who wonders whether in jail but dates a young soldier in his absence. When Karel and Olina discuss the the achievement of freedom has been worth the horror he has suffered. Jan Žalman situation, Olina points out that although the husband had received a long sentence, writes: his friends had stood up for him. Karel replies that he will be forgotten inside a year. The implication of an unjust sentence combined with social apathy is a scarcely veiled Its highly effective style, alternating moments of the hero‟s introspection with passages reference to the political trials of the fifties, which affected all walks of life. of dramatic plot, is based on the author‟s [Mňačko‟s] own experiences; it strongly One assumes that the minister of culture must have been looking the other way influenced the treatment of the film. While Three Wishes was still made in the when this film was released. It is, of course, possible to argue that the problems with conventional way, in Engelchen Kadár and Klos for the first time adopted modern which it deals could be characteristic of life in any advanced Western society. methods, in particular those introduced to the cinema by Resnais. The film‟s However, the same can be said of later films, such as Forman‟s The Firemen’s Ball construction creates a disturbing atmosphere, the associative sequences giving it a (1967) and Němec‟s The Party and the Guests (1966), which have been banned for their strongly personal dimension.7 statement of unpalatable truths. The importance of House at the Terminus lies in the fact that the loneliness, cynicism, and compromise that it portrays are supposed to be Kadár and Klos were not familiar with Alain Resnais‟s work when they wrote the either eliminated or exceptional cases within a socialist society. Since the films that script. However, a later film, Adrift/Desire Is Called Anada (Touha zvaná Anada, 1969), were condemned at this time are safely locked away, it is not possible to make a made in collaboration with the Hungarian writer and future film director Imre comparison. However, the fact that a film like House at the Terminus could be made Gyöngyössy, clearly shows the influence of Resnais and Alain Robbe-Grillet. The role without condemnation suggests two things. The first is the extent to which the of memory and imagination is central to its fantasy about a beautiful girl who may or banned films must have been overt in their criticism. The second is a generally felt may not have been saved from drowning in the Danube. It was made with great need to confront the realities of everyday life that probably went beyond the immediate individual interests and objectives of Kadár and Klos. Their next film, Three Wishes, was, however, one of the main targets of the Bánska Bystrica conference. Adapted from a stage play by Vratislav Blažek, it was a modern 5 Liehm and Liehm, Most Important Art, pp. 226-227. fairy tale in which the hero is granted three wishes. He achieves success in life, but his 6 Ibid., p. 227. 7 Žalman, Films and Filmmakers, p. 22.

50 fluidity and technical assurance but is more a professional, mainstream equivalent of Ted Allan‟s Lies My Father Told Me (Canada, 1976), have been derived from explicitly Robbe-Grillet‟s L’Immortelle (1963) than a breaking of new ground.8 Jewish subjects. On the other hand, it may be that, as the “Jewish” director of The The film for which Kadár and Klos received the widest international acclaim is Shop on Main Street, these were the subjects that were offered him. their Oscar-winning (1965). An account of life in Slovakia In Czechoslovakia, the treatment of Jewish themes has been clearly linked to an during the period of the independent fascist state, it tells the story of an old deaf increasing liberalization in cultural policy. The production of Romeo, Juliet, and Jewish woman (Ida Kamińska) and her relationship with a Slovak (Jozef Króner), Darkness (1960), Transport from Paradise (1963) by Zbyněk Brynych, The Shop on Main who is allocated her button shop as “Aryan controller.” He finds it almost impossible Street (1965), Dita Saxová (1967) by Antonín Moskalyk, and The Cremator (1968) by to communicate with her and is unable to tell her the truth. The deception continues could only have been achieved in the more open atmosphere of the sixties. until all the Jews are deported, but by some bureaucratic error, the old lady is left off Conversely, the opposite proved the case when, in the seventies, accusations of the list. Scared of being accused of sheltering a Jew, he tries to get her to join the “Zionism” were launched against the films, and all those based on novels by Arnošt deportees, fails, pushes her into a cupboard, and locks it. When the deportation is Lustig, including Transport from Paradise and Dita Saxová, were withdrawn from over, he discovers her to be dead and hangs himself. distribution (although in Lustig‟s case, this is also linked to his emigration). Despite its grim and ironic theme, the film is played primarily as a comedy, In 1975, the East German film Jacob the Liar (Jakob der Lügner), from the novel by observing the human qualities and failings of its protagonists. It is conventional in its Jurek Becker, in turn based on his own unfilmed screenplay, was considered a historic narrative approach while including subjective and fantasy scenes within its breakthrough. Its filmic presentation by director Frank Beyer was absolutely framework. It sought and attained a universal relevance outside of its specifically conventional, but it dealt openly with a Jewish theme. Perversely enough, considering Jewish context. the fate of the Lustig films, Jacob the Liar emerged as an East German-Czechoslovak For Czechoslovak audiences, its most important feature was the convincing co-production with the Czech actor Vlastimil Brodský playing the leading role. It was portrayal of the banality of life in wartime Slovakia, the growth of fascism within an rejected by the Moscow Film Festival, and Becker has subsequently found himself a ordinary community. cultural “dissident.” Kadár was himself a Jew, and the film was inevitably accused, in some quarters, of “Zionist” inspiration. This was particularly so after 1970, but it is worth noting that although Radok‟s career almost certainly suffered as a result of anti-Semitism, the In: Hames, Peter. The Czechoslovak New Wave. University of California Press., Berkeley, politically committed Weiss and Kadár worked regularly during the Stalinist period. 1985, pp. 45-51. Kadár said that he was never really aware of his Jewishness and deluded himself into dismissing the persecution of others as “mistakes.” “In my case there was undoubtedly the fact that I had never encountered racial discrimination personally, neither in my work nor in my private life. . . .”9 He was also committed to the official view on culture in his early years even if his films mark a progressive dissension. He speaks of the humanist traditions of the Czech lands and the fact that anti-Semitism, although a Central European phenomenon, was a peripheral influence there. He approached The Shop on Main Street with the view that the tragedy of the Jews was identical with that of Europe as a whole. Kadár only recognized anti-Semitism in 1967 when there was a clash between the intellectuals and the pro-Arab stance of the regime. Official language began to echo that of the fifties purges and Kadár became, from then on, consciously Jewish. Two of his English-language films, Bernard Malamud‟s Tlre Angel Levine (U.S., 1970) and

8 Adrift was filmed in Slovakia. An interesting footnote to this parallcl is the fact that Robbe-Grillet filmed both L’homme qui ment (1968) and L’Eden et après (1971) as Franco-Slovak co-productions. The director of photography on both was Igor Luther, noted for his work with , and, later Volker Schlöndorff. 9 Kadár, interviwed in Liehm, , p. 406.

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